1st Edition
Children’s Opera and Music Drama Practical Tools for Composers and Creators
Introduction 1. Defining children’s Opera and Music Drama 2. Four Key Concepts of Influence 3. Essential Elements 4. Writing for a Young Audience – Text 5. Writing for a Young Audience – Music 6. Collaboration 7. Practitioner Perspectives. Conclusion. Appendices: Blank Characterisation Solar System Template, Blank Characterisation Solar System Template (with prompts), Blank Storyboard Template.
Biography
Emma Jayakumar is an award-winning Australian composer, librettist, researcher and educator specialising in children’s opera, music drama and child-centred creative practice. She is currently Choral Director of the WAO Sings program for West Australian Opera and an ongoing sessional academic at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). From 2022–2024 she was Research Officer with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child at Edith Cowan University, contributing to international research on children’s digital lives and digital citizenship in partnership with LEGO Asia Pacific.
Emma is the author of the forthcoming book Children’s Opera and Music Drama: Practical Tools for Composers and Creators and has published primarily on child-centred research projects and music drama for young audiences. Her compositions and libretti in both specialised children’s work and modern art music have been commissioned and presented by organisations including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), West Australian Opera, West Australian Ballet, the Australian Vocal Ensemble (AVÉ), the Darwin Symphony Orchestra, the Perth Symphony Orchestra, and the Darlington Quartet. She is the recipient of the 2022 Performing Arts WA Award (PAWA) for Best Score for her opera Our Little Inventor.
Emma holds a PhD in Composition from WAAPA, a dissertation for which she was awarded the 2018 WAAPA Research Medal. Emma is an alumna of the Royal Academy of Music London (Post-Grad Diploma, LRAM), the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (MMus), and WAAPA (BMus).
